"That's a huge event," said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Sanford friend and former state lawmaker, because it gives the governor a "like-minded" majority.

Sanford has chafed at often being on the short side of 3-2 votes, as he and Eckstrom were outvoted by a coalition of Patterson and Republicans Cooper and Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence, Senate Finance chairman.

To Rep. Harry Cato, R-Travelers Rest, chairman of the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, it was "a convincing vote."

Rick Beltram, the Spartanburg County GOP chairman, suggested that legislators take notice of Sanford's margin.

But Jim Hodges, the Democratic governor defeated by Sanford in 2002, said that while Sanford achieved a solid victory, "It's hard to describe it as a mandate" along the lines of Dick Riley's education penny, Carroll Campbell's government restructuring, or his own lottery initiative.

No dominant issue, no mandate, Hodges said.

"Politicians have to weigh carefully what is a mandate," said Sen. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn. "The fact that he's a Republican (in South Carolina) carried him to victory.

"Unless he changes his method of operation, he's going to run into that same brick wall," Thomas said, explaining that Sanford needs to stop fighting and belittling the Legislature and spend more time in serious give and take, or "they'll just do what they think they ought to be doing."

Chip Felkel, a Greenville public affairs consultant and veteran of numerous GOP campaigns, said Sanford used money and incumbency to wage a "super campaign," but questioned the mandate notion.

"I don't see how. Thomas Ravenel gets credit for his own win after two statewide races. Education candidate Karen Floyd was the poster child for Sanford's education views. Mandates require coattails, and there isn't any evidence of such. He is to be congratulated. But now, the pressure is really, really on. He has to deliver, no excuses, plain and simple," Felkel said.

Sanford ran fifth among nine statewide Republican candidates.

Tim Brett, a former Campbell aide now a Greenville public relations executive who headed Upstate Republicans for Moore, scoffed at Sanford's mandate claim.

"I've been told by Republican legislators that I know that he's a lame duck governor immediately in January, that's the way they're going to treat him," Brett said.

Turnout was lower than in 2002, by 31,784 votes, but Sanford's margin almost doubled to 110,206 votes. Tuesday, he carried 22 of 46 counties, down one from four years ago.

While his overall numbers were strong, there were signs of discontent.

In heavily Republican Lexington County, where Sanford won by more than 22,000 votes the first time around, he did so by little more than half that on Tuesday. Newberry, a county he carried in 2002, he lost this time.

Sanford lost both counties in his primary with Oscar Lovelace, a family doctor from Prosperity in Newberry County. The governor also alienated some in Lexington with his veto of authorization for a heart center there.

But Greenville, another county where there was some disenchantment with the governor, provided a third of his statewide margin with a 33,418-vote cushion, improving on his 2002 showing.